Saving Money a By-Product of Saving Time with Data Center Automation (DCA)

When I first with Javier, Hyperic CEO, there were two things that struck me. One, Javier’s complete enthusiasm for the Hyperic HQ software and the team he was building, customers included. And two, he was right – Hyperic HQ actually provided real value to its users and customers through automating really tough processes and providing a better perspective on the data.  Basically, it saved people time, money and headaches when deploying web-based applications. So I signed up.

Today, my good friend Andi Mann of Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) confirms what I’ve known for some time, and why I bought into the Hyperic value proposition and the Open Source business model.  A press release from EMA describes a survey which found the following:

Data Center Automation (DCA) technologies can effectively avoid Data Center staffing  increase requirements by 100%, saving an average of $750,000 per year on resource costs alone. (this is a 50% reduction in costs on average)

In addition to substantial cost savings, 75 percent of respondents stated that DCA delivers measurable increases in profitability. The study also found that DCA prevents Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) increase for system problems by an average of 250%. (this is a 66% reduction in MTTR on average)

(Note: The original publication had some errors in the way this data was presented, at Andi’s request I am attempting to alter this with the correct information, but it’s no longer an exact quote.)

Additionally, Andi uncovered this startling fact:

…cost reduction, though listed in the top five, was not the primary driver for DCA deployment. Rather, EMA found that the primary drivers for DCA deployment were mostly strategic — such as reducing complexity, improving response time and reducing firefighting. When asked what stopped them from deploying (or deploying more) DCA solutions, respondents were concerned primarily about purchase costs. However, EMA found that the big issues were really internal and political — like lack of available people, processes or time.

This further supports the finding that:

 When polled on the most important deciding factors for choosing a DCA solution, respondents noted ease of use and ease of implementation as the two most important factors, outranking requirements such as purchase cost and feature set by a small but significant margin.

I translate this to people, especially the ops teams, want to make their jobs and lives easier, more predictable. They want something that is implemented easily, and allows them to make better decisions earlier. They will spend money to save time (and eventually money), but they need to be very clear on what that value proposition is early.

This is where Open Source comes in. By removing those artificial barriers to experiment, and prove to themselves the value proposition, while at the same time providing it at a lower cost - those same ops teams now have access to these types of solutions in an acquisition model that better suits them, Thus proving Andi’s final conclusion:

“Open Source and appliance-based solutions are two growing trends that will continue to shake up the DCA market,” stated Mann. “They will definitely become even more important over time as data centers look to deploy DCA solutions in less expensive form factors.”

I couldn’t have said it better, Andi. Thank you for putting hard data behind what we at Hyperic have been working for all along.

(For more information on this report, visit http://www.emausa.com/ema_collateral/EMA_DCA-2007-RR-OV.pdf. For pricing information or to purchase this report, please contact Kevin Hecht at khecht@enterprisemanagement.com or (303) 543-9500 x124.)

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